LAS VEGAS--An execution scheduled for Saturday may be the last for a while in this Wild West state. With an unusual coalition of philosophies that could only happen here, Nevada could become the first state to enact a legislative moratorium on the death penalty.
The debate among legislators in Carson City reflects a political dynamic that is uniquely Nevada: Many Democrats oppose the costly pursuit of death penalty cases and libertarian-leaning Republicans--hardly bleeding hearts on crime--see executions as the ultimate expression of government control.
"We are a state with more freedoms. We are lovers of liberty, and suspicious of strong state action," said Mark James, a Las Vegas lawyer and Republican who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee. "There isn't any stronger manifestation of government than when it acts to take someone's life."
So for different reasons, Democrats and Republicans are arguing that a two-year pause in executions is needed to explore various capital punishment questions, including whether death sentences reflect racial, economic or other biases.
Several of the 38 states that allow executions are considering similar moratoriums, but only Illinois has enacted one, a ban declared by the governor. The Nebraska Legislature passed a moratorium two years ago that was vetoed by the governor.
In Nevada, where the Legislature is in session only four months every two years, legislators are moving swiftly. The Democratic-controlled state Assembly received the legislation Thursday after the Republican-controlled Senate passed it by a bipartisan vote of 13 to 8.
The Assembly is braced for strident debate over the bill, but even those opposed to it say they expect it to pass, perhaps next week, and be forwarded for Gov. Kenny Guinn's signature. The governor is leaning toward opposition of the bill but has not decided whether he would sign it, a spokesman said Thursday.
If the moratorium is signed into law, its effect may be more symbolic than practical. Death row prisoners who wish to be executed would not be covered and, aside from Saturday's planned execution, no cases are expected to exhaust appeals by July 1, 2003, when the moratorium would expire.
At 9 p.m. Saturday, Sebastian Bridges is scheduled to be killed at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. He was convicted in the 1997 murder of his ex-wife's boyfriend and has not appealed.
Of the eight men executed in Nevada since the state reenacted the death penalty in 1977, seven did not appeal. But 85 other men and one woman on Nevada's death row are in the midst of the appellate process.
An earlier version of the bill would have abolished executions, but it failed to win much support.
"It costs us between $1 million and $2 million to run through the [capital punishment] process and we're not executing that many people anyway," said Bernie Anderson, a Sparks schoolteacher and Democratic chairman of the Assembly's Judiciary Committee who co-authored the earlier bill. "Why go through the charade? We are spending our dollars foolishly."
As a compromise, James proposed the two-year moratorium for a study that, reflecting capital punishment concerns across the country, would examine the role of race and economic status in meting out death penalties, whether defendants have adequate resources and counsel, whether juries are properly instructed, the emerging role of DNA evidence and, ultimately, whether capital punishment effectively prevents murders.
Another Republican senator, Mark Amodei of Carson City, proposed allowing inmates to proceed with their executions if they want, moratorium notwithstanding.
James objected, saying that it was tantamount to state-assisted suicide. "It's only a death penalty if someone dies at the compulsion of the state," he said. "Capital punishment has nothing to do with the wishes of the person."
But rather than jeopardize the bill's passage, James relented, and it left the 21-member Senate with the support of nine Democrats and four Republicans.
The speaker of the Assembly, Henderson Deputy Police Chief Richard Perkins, said he will try to defeat the moratorium "with all the energy I have."
"I've been a police officer all my life and I won't turn my back on the victims in this state," Perkins said. But because some people have doubts about how defendants in capital cases are prosecuted and sentenced, he will support the study of death penalty cases "out of deference to them."
Unlike career politicians in other states, Nevada's part-time legislators are not as stringently loyal to party affiliations, and they often cross aisles on various issues.
The Assembly Democrats' floor leader, Barbara Buckley of Las Vegas, said she anticipates bipartisan support for the moratorium.
"The death penalty raises strong emotional issues--among some who are very concerned about flaws in the system and may be motivated by strong religious lobbying, and among others who are very much in favor of it but see nothing wrong with a two-year moratorium and study."
Republican Lynn Hettrick, a Gardnerville investment manager and the Assembly's minority leader, said he opposes the moratorium because "there are some crimes so heinous that they simply deserve the death penalty. The families of the victims don't get a moratorium."
But still, he said, he expects the bill to be approved by a majority of his colleagues.
"Many will figure, why not [approve it]? It's just a moratorium," he said, "and we haven't had executions for years except of guys who wanted to die."
Design copyright Scars Publications and Design. Copyright of individual pieces remain with the author. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.
